


Hanging by a Moment

by someryn



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 09:50:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8051707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/someryn/pseuds/someryn
Summary: Alec/Clary Shadowhunters fic after Jace walks through the portal. Background Alec/Magnus. In which Clary and Alec learn to rely on each other, and Alec discovers he might be the tiniest bit bisexual.





	Hanging by a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> I am first and foremost a book reader, but this fic is written in the Shadowhunters Season 1 universe and references events that don't happen in the books. I do play a little loose with some plot details because I am too lazy to go back and watch the last couple of episodes to make sure everything matches up perfectly.
> 
> Enjoy!

She was running to her death and didn't know it, and Alec wrapped his arms around her without remembering deciding to, holding her back while the portal disappeared.

Clary collapsed against him, and he wasn't expecting to have to take all her weight, that she would trust him that fully, however subconsciously, to catch her as she screamed and started to fall. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, half to comfort her and half to keep her upright, and stared over her head at the wall.

His _parabatai_ was gone. Jace had abandoned him, had left him, before, but it hadn't been like this. This wasn't two differing opinions on how to do the right thing; it was something else, something new and terrible, and the sense of betrayal Alec felt almost brought him to his knees as well.

Isabelle touched his arm lightly, and he turned his head, trying not to dislodge Clary from where she was still clutching him so tightly he thought she might leave bruises on his arms.

"We need to get back," his sister said softly, nodding toward the door, Magnus and Simon looking on in concern.

Alec involuntarily glanced back at the wall, at the place where his other half had walked away from him, had walked away from all of them, with someone who wanted to destroy their world and ally with demons. And Jace had gone with him willingly.

"I'll leave in a minute." He looked down and saw that Clary still hadn't made any indication that she would move anytime soon. Her soft sobs vibrated against his chest. " _We'll_ leave in a minute," he amended. "All demonic energy is going to be attracted to the power of the Mortal Cup. Nothing will be on the streets tonight."

Isabelle hesitated, looking at Magnus, who inclined his head in agreement. She finally nodded. "We'll see you soon, then." She looked between him and Clary, and sympathy clouded her features.

Alec felt a pang of love for his sister, who had to be hurting, too, but who was setting it aside for the two of them.

Without thinking, Alec rested his chin on Clary's head and closed his eyes, so he didn't see the others leave. Her hands slipped from clutching at his arms to sliding around his waist.

She was still crying, and Alec fought back his own tears. Shadowhunters didn't cry, and boys learned that lesson even harder than the girls. He almost envied Clary's ability to do so openly in front of him.

He wondered where it had all gone wrong, what had led them to this moment. His life had been so simple. Kill demons, eat, sleep, and get up and do it again in the morning.

Everything had changed when Clary had come, and he had hated her for disrupting his life's routine, for making him consciously consider his own life's direction for the first time in his twenty years.

But Jace had been right, Alec knew. Clary hadn't brought about the devastation of their lives; she had merely heralded it. She had been hurt by it all at least as much as the rest of them.

Her sobbing finally began to fade, but her trembling didn't. She shivered like she was cold, and he stepped back enough to look down at her at her tearstained face, and something in his heart wrenched. Her eyes were unfocused, staring at the blank wall, and her breathing came in rapid pants.

"Alec, Jace..." she gasped and didn't have enough air to speak again for a moment. "He left," she finished unnecessarily. "He _left_ ," she repeated, over and over.

He touched her chin gently until she looked at him, but it still took several seconds for her eyes to lose their distant glaze and to focus on him.

"We'll get him back, Clary," he told her firmly, but he had no confidence in his own words.  She nodded rapidly, but he could tell she didn't believe him.

He suddenly couldn't stand to be in the place where he felt like his heart had stopped anymore. "We need to go," he told her. "Being down here isn't helping either of us."

Without stopping to second guess the impulse, he slid his hands from where he was gripping her upper arms and held a hand out to her instead. He hoped he wasn't coming off as ridiculously incompetent as he felt, that she even wanted the weak comfort he could offer her.

For a moment she stared at his hand dully, and he contemplated curling into a ball and cursed his own inability to relate to other people.

Then she reached for him, interlacing her cool fingers with his much larger, warmer hand. He looked down in surprise at the unexpectedly intimate gesture, but he didn't pull away.

She wrapped her other hand around his wrist as he led her from the room. He walked slowly to ensure she could keep up with his naturally longer stride, and together they stepped out onto the streets of Brooklyn. Even though it was the Angel only knew what time of night, the sidewalks still hosted a steady stream of pedestrians.

She didn't let go of his hand, and Alec felt a flash of hatred toward Jace. The intensity of it shocked him. Even when Jace had lied to him, he hadn't felt this angry.

From Clary's search for her mother, to finding her father was Valentine, to losing the Mortal Cup, to learning that Jace was her brother – none of that had been enough to break her. But losing Jace, from seeing him look at her and then still decide to walk away with Valentine, had been.

Alec pulled his hand free of hers, and before she could reach for him again, he wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pressed her in close against his side.

He glanced down at her. Tears were still falling steadily down her fair features, and her eyes were swimming when she glanced up at him. "Alec, what do we do?" she whispered.

He knew what she was asking. What did they do about Jace, about him joining Valentine? What did they do to save the world now, when the Mortal Cup was in the hands of the enemy? How could they save Jace when he had left them willingly?

But he didn't have those answers for her, so he answered the one he could. "Right now, we're going home," he said.

She nodded, as if she knew what he was thinking, and pressed in tighter against his side. He was glad, for the first time, that her home was the same as his now.

He would protect her, keep her safe. He would do what his _parabatai_ hadn't been willing or able to do.

* * *

Alec hadn't expected her to continue to seek him out.

He knew what he was. The half of the _parabatai_ pair she didn't want. The man she hadn't fallen in love with. The boy who was always overshadowed by his parents' adopted son, the man she did love.

But still she came.

Maybe she didn't want those things anymore.

"Teach me," she said the next morning in the training room. Her eyes were still red-rimmed, from lack of sleep or crying, he didn't know. Maybe both.

But her gaze was clear, unclouded, and her chin was firm.

He stepped away from the punching bag, dropping his hands. They were throbbing, even through the thick gloves. He wondered how long he had been standing there, swinging at an imaginary foe. Swinging at Valentine, or at Jace? He didn't know.

He pulled them off, and she followed him as he walked past her. He pulled down two staves off the wall, hanging higher than she would be able to reach.

"You probably won't fight many actual battles with a staff," he told her as he handed her one. "Unless you want them to be your main weapon. But they're good for getting a good workout and for learning how it feels to actually spar with someone without the risk of skewering them with a blade."

"Charming mental image," she said, wrinkling her nose, and Alec had to fight back a smile.

"Legs apart." He gestured to her feet until she moved to stand shoulder width apart.

She brushed a strand of wavy hair out of her eyes. "I bet you say that to all the boys."

He did smile then. He didn't mention that the answer to any questioning along those lines had been very close to _never_ and _no one_ , up until Magnus. He'd been too focused on Jace, which wasn't surprising. Jace took up a lot of people's attention.

He showed her how to hold her staff, and then he began advancing on her. Jace would have had thorough explanations to give for making each move, interspersed with witty observations and sarcastic comments. Alec couldn't have done that if he'd wanted to.

Instead, he showed her by doing, by attacking and then freezing when she made a mistake, positioning her staff or her body where she should have moved instead. It was physical, but fights were physical things, and it was hard to teach someone combat skills without touching them. He was oddly aware of her each time he touched her bare skin.

After a while her cheeks began to turn red with exertion and sweat formed at her temple, but she didn't ask him to stop. Every time he nodded toward the bench questioningly, she shook her head and raised her staff again.

Finally, he was the one who gave in, exhausted. He didn't know how long they had been sparring, but it was at least a couple of hours. He collapsed on his back on the mat and reached for a bottle of water. After a moment, Clary dropped down beside him, breathing heavily.

He took a drink and handed her the bottle without looking at her. She took it and poured some on her face before drinking it. He glanced at her, at the water sliding over her forehead and down her cheeks, and looked away, uncomfortable with the feeling the sight of it produced.

"Feel better?" he asked her after they'd lain in silence for several minutes.

She paused, and he knew she was going to tell him the truth. He appreciated that about her. She was honest in all her emotions: her happiness, her anger, her sadness.

"A little," she said finally. "I think I'll be able to sleep tonight, at least."

"You couldn't sleep last night?" he asked her.

She cut her eyes to him. "You could?"

"Eventually." After several hours of staring at the ceiling, intermittently touching his _parabatai_ rune and reassuring himself that Jace was alive, and as long as he was alive, they would be able to bring him back. They would be able to fix this.

"You can come to me if you need to talk," he said suddenly, and wanted to curse himself for the words. He saw her stiffen in surprise from the corner of his eye. "I know you probably prefer Izzy, but just in case – I'll listen." He cut himself off before he made things even more awkward.

Clary reached across the mat toward his fingers and squeezed his hand for just a second. "Thanks, Alec," she whispered. Then she sat up and walked out of the room, setting her staff neatly against the wall before she went.

Alec stayed on the floor until his breathing and heartbeat returned to normal.

* * *

 

She came back the next day. And the next. A week passed, and still she came.

He sparred with her until her muscles trembled too much to hold up the staff, and he knew why she was doing it. Her eyes weren't red with tiredness any more, but he suspected the first day she went without driving her body to exhaustion she would be back to sleepless nights.

On the second day, he noted that she was moving stiffly and assumed it was just residual soreness from the day before. Then he saw a wide, purple bruise spreading across her upper thigh, disappearing into her workout shorts. Though bruises were an inevitable part of training as a Shadowhunter, he felt inexplicably guilty for injuring her.

"Why didn't you heal that?" he asked her, nodding toward the bruise.

She looked down, like she didn't know what he was talking about until she saw it. She reached down and pressed the bruise with her fingertips, hard. She shrugged. "It feels good," she said with a wry twist to her mouth. She raised her staff. "Give me another."

Alec grimaced but didn't argue with her. Interfering with her own way of handling grief wouldn't help her or anyone else.

But from then on, he began examining her after they were done with training, and insisting she heal the worst of her bruises. She had protested at first, but he had told her flatly he wouldn't train with her unless she did.

It had still taken him stealing her _stele_ from her hands with nimble fingers and telling her he'd mark her himself before she'd finally conceded, scowling at him as she drew the _iratzes_ across her skin. He'd looked away, suddenly uncomfortable, as she raised the hem of her tank top enough to draw one across her hip.

She saw the movement and glanced up, giving him the faintest look of surprise. He turned to leave the training room without another word, angry, though he didn't know why.

He thought after forcing her to heal herself that would be the end of her coming to him, but she showed up the next day, the worst of her bruises vanished, and reached up on tiptoes to pull a staff down for each of them. They hadn't talked about that any more than they ever talked about Jace, but meeting to fight like this was somehow exactly what they needed.

They were warriors, after all, and this was how Shadowhunters grieved.

* * *

 

When he wasn't sparring with Clary, and he couldn't stand to be in the Institute, talking about Jace or Valentine or the Mortal Cup any longer, Alec retreated to Magnus's house, lying back against his sofa and closing his eyes.

Magnus hadn't asked anything of him since the wedding and their fight over Camille and Alec's mortality and the rest of it, and Alec was happy to put aside their arguments for now. He had enough problems running through his head without creating more.

"You're unhappy, Alexander," Magnus observed several days after Jace had left, setting down a cup of tea in front of him on the coffee table and taking a seat next to Alec on the couch.

"Yeah," Alec said, picking up the cup of tea and examining it disinterestedly. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do about Jace or Valentine. I don't trust the Clave or my parents not to fuck it up." He set the cup down again, untouched, and ran a hand through his hair. "I just hate feeling helpless."

Magnus moved closer to him on the couch and wrapped his arm around Alec's shoulders. After a moment, Alec let himself lean into him, resting his head on top of Magnus's.

"What do your sister and Clarissa think?"

Alec hesitated at the mention of Clary's name, but of course there was nothing to hesitate about. "Izzy wants to believe our parents and the Clave will be able to handle it better than we could. Deep down, she still wants Mom's approval. Clary is... usually she'd be charging out to do things her own way, probably dragging Izzy and me along with her. But this time... she's not. She's depressed, I guess. "

"Understandably so," Magnus said with a nod.

"I don't want to talk," Alec said abruptly. Before Magnus could do anything except give him a surprised, vaguely hurt look, Alec leaned over to capture Magnus's lips and push him down onto the couch, straddling him. Magnus's hands came up to rest comfortably on Alec's hips. "I want to forget," Alec murmured against his lips. "Make me forget."

He felt Magnus smile against his mouth. "With pleasure."

* * *

 

Late one evening about two weeks after Jace left, Clary came to his room. He rarely saw her after their daily training sessions, so he was surprised when she knocked on his open bedroom door and then stepped inside, looking nervous.

"Um, you said I could talk to you..." She trailed off, looking embarrassed. "I should probably be over this by now, right?" she finished, her words coming out in a rush.

Alec set down the book he was reading in his armchair and gestured her farther into the room. "Over Jace?" he asked. "I don't know. He broke your heart. He abandoned you. Is two weeks long enough to get over that?"

"He abandoned you, too," she said, stepping a little closer, until she was leaning against the edge of his bed, staring at him with intent eyes.

"And I'm not over it," Alec said.

"Oh," she said quietly. She bit her lip and looked around the room. "Would you mind if I sat in here? I think I want to try drawing again. I'll sit on the floor..."

He rolled his eyes. "You're not going to sit on the fucking floor, Clary. You can sit on my bed, or I'll move and you can sit in the chair."

She shot him a quick grin of relief, and it was almost like the ones he'd seen her throw at Jace before it all went to hell.

She came back a few minutes later with a sketchpad and pack of pencils. She was wearing a tank top and soft lounge pants and was barefoot as she climbed on top of his neatly-made bed, not asking him to give her the chair. She spread out the pencils carefully across the covers and sat down cross-legged among them with her sketchbook in her lap.

Once her supplies were arranged as she wanted them to be, she looked up at him, where he was still seated in the chair. "Thank you," she said.

He nodded and returned to his book, listening to the soft rasp of her pencil across the page. For some reason he felt more relaxed than he had in days.

* * *

 

She didn't bring up Jace again until the third evening she showed up in his bedroom in pajamas, her sketchbook clutched in her hand.

"I'm mad at him," she said after she'd been drawing for half an hour, not looking up from her picture. She'd brought colored pencils with her this time, and she was sketching with a dark blue as she spoke. "I'm mad and I try not to be and then I think I have a right to be and then I get mad at myself for not doing anything more."

"What were you supposed to do?" Alec asked her.

She pressed her pencil harder. He thought she might break through the paper soon, though the pages were thick and stiff. "I don't know. Convince him it didn't matter. Convince him not to go with Valentine."

"Convince him what didn't matter?"

"That I'm his sister. Well, not that it didn't _matter_ , but it didn't matter what we'd done before we knew. He was trying to punish himself, like we could have known." She wiped a tear from her eye angrily. "But leaving punished me, too." She met Alec's eyes, and then her gaze dropped to his _parabatai_ rune. "It punished both of us."

Alec tilted his head back against the chair, abruptly drained, and he closed his eyes for a moment. "Yeah," he agreed. "It did."

Her eyes rested on him sympathetically, and he was surprised to find that it didn't irritate him. She wasn't being patronizing. She understood.

"You never ask me what I'm drawing," she commented several minutes later. Her strokes had evened out, and she was sketching with a deep black now in steady, short strokes. "Everyone always does."

"I figured it was private," Alec said. "Like a diary." He'd been curious, but being a private person himself, he tried to respect other people's secrets.

"It _is_ like a diary," she said, sounding surprised. "No one ever seems to think that. But look, I drew us."

She held up a page, and he rose and walked over to the bed to see it clearly. Sure enough, there were two full-body figures sketched in, each holding a staff, in what was clearly the training room of the Institute.

Alec examined the one that represented him, a tall man in black gear holding his staff high, drawn in clear, confident strokes. "It's good. Though I think you made me more handsome than I actually am," he added with a wry smile.

She glanced down at the drawing and then back at him. "I think you don't see yourself clearly enough," she said, and her eyes sparkled with something more than amusement.

He looked away, fighting down the urge to blush at her teasing. He wasn't a teenager anymore, for god's sake.

"Hey," Clary said. She touched his arm lightly. "I'm sorry. Do you not want me to draw you anymore?"

He turned back to her. "Of course not," he said, something inside of him loosening at her anxious expression. "I'm probably not a very good subject, but feel free."

She smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "You're an excellent subject, Alec," she said. To his surprise, she reached out to squeeze his hand. Her palm was warm and soft in his. She didn't have the calluses from years of fighting that he did yet.

"You're an excellent instructor, too. I've never thanked you for teaching me. I know you don't have to."

"I wanted to," he said, staring down at their clasped hands. He didn't let go, though he felt like he should. "You should be able to protect yourself." _And I think it helps both of us_ , he added silently.

She slipped her hand out of his to begin gathering her pencils, and he felt a pang at the loss of contact. "I'm going to visit my mom before I go to bed," she said, but she didn't quite meet his eyes. He thought her cheeks looked the slightest bit pink, though he couldn't imagine why.

"Okay," he said, furrowing his brow. It was almost a full hour earlier than she usually left. "See you tomorrow?"

She grinned at him, and her natural smile seem to have returned. He had a hard time not returning it, when it was directed at him. "Same time, same place."

* * *

 

Alec tried to be subtle, but subtlety had never been his strong suit, at least in social situations. Single-minded would be much better description of his conversational style when he wanted something.

He went to Magnus's house the following afternoon after his training session with Clary with the intention of being delicate in his questioning. But after half an hour of easy conversation with his lover, during which Alec failed to get anywhere close to a natural segue into the topic, he abandoned cleverness.

"Tell me how it felt to love Camille," he demanded, apropos of nothing. "Did it feel the same as loving another man?"

Magnus leaned back on the couch, resting his hands behind his head. "It feels different to love every single person, Alec," he said, as if the question was completely normal. "But no, there are no intrinsic differences between loving a man versus loving a woman. At least not for me."

Alec nodded, feeling somehow more miserable than he had when he'd come in. "I love you," he told Magnus. He rarely said it, but he knew Magnus liked to hear it.

Magnus's expression softened, and he leaned forward to capture Alec's lips in his. For several minutes, Alec allowed himself to get lost in the sensation of kissing Magnus. They pulled away breathlessly, and Magnus kissed his cheeks, his forehead, and his chin before leaning back on the couch with a smile.

"I love you, too," he said serenely. "Now, is this about Clary?"

Alec froze, and he couldn't help turning wide eyes on Magnus. He didn't look angry, just looked at Alec with a thoughtful expression.

"I didn't–" Alec hastened to say. He thought about denying it, but he didn't want to lie to Magnus. He was done with lying about his love life, at least to Magnus. "Um, I didn't, I wouldn't do..." He took a deep breath. "That. Anything."

Magnus nodded. "I didn't think you had," he said. "Tell me what's on your mind, Alexander."

Alec ran a hand through his hair. "Just... there's never been any girl, in all my life, that I've thought about like that. It's always been... well, men."

"Most of us aren't purely binary creatures," Magnus said. "Just..." He trailed his hand in the air as if he couldn't quite find the best word. "I would say hues of the rainbow, but that seems to exclude heterosexuality. Shades of gray, for lack of a better phrasing."

"I just feel like I have this identity I've fought so hard for," Alec muttered. "That I've agonized about since I was a kid and realized I was different and tried to deny for years. And it feels almost like I'm betraying it."

"Your identity doesn't need to impress anyone else, Alexander," Magnus said gently. "It isn't subject to outside approval. It just needs to be true to you."

Alec let out a long breath. "Okay. That helps." He reached out to touch Magnus's hand. He easily curled his fingers into Alec's. "I'm not going to do anything about it, obviously, it was just such a confusing–"

"Do you _want_ to do anything about it?" Magnus asked.

Alec's fingers in Magnus's tightened. "What?"

Magnus gave him a small smile. "I have lived for a very long time, Alexander," he said. Alec winced at the reminder of his immortality, but he didn't say anything. "Love is not finite, and I will be happy if she can make you happy. Even if I am not the sole recipient of your love."

Alec went very still, letting Magnus's words sink in. Then he pulled Magnus up off the couch by the hand he was still holding, dragging him into the bedroom.

He hadn't made a decision yet, but just hearing Magnus say it made Alec love him that much more. He tried to inject his love and gratitude and appreciation into every kiss, every caress, every touch, and smiled as Magnus's skilled hands played across his body in return.

When he finally lay back on the bed, gasping, alongside a very smug looking Magnus, he allowed himself a small smile. "You're sure?" he asked him.

Magnus gave him an exhausted but genuine smile. "For you, Alexander, anything."

* * *

 

Alec wasn't sure what to actually do with the freedom Magnus had granted him. He _wanted_ to do something with it, to see if this was something that could grow into something amazing (like he sometimes thought might be the case), but he was at a loss on how to handle actually pursuing someone.

Magnus had been the one to initiate everything between them, and there'd been no one before him besides a couple of guys at a gay nightclub he'd let kiss him when he was seventeen just so he could say he'd kissed someone.

But being Shadowhunter meant knowing that life was short. He was aware of the possibility of his death every time he went out hunting. It made any nervousness he had about talking to Clary a little less intimidating.

It was still nerve-wracking, though. Especially since he had no idea where to begin. Did he say, "Sure, you, me, and the entire universe thought I was gay but turns out I'm the slightest bit bisexual and can I stick my tongue in your mouth?"

He also wasn't sure it had been long enough for Clary to grieve. It had been a month now, and it wasn't like she could ever go back to Jace romantically. If Clary didn't feel the same way, she could tell him so and he'd never bring it up again, and he would just have to hope he hadn't ruined their friendship. He reminded himself of his "life is short" mantra.

That evening, when Clary came into his bedroom with her pencils and sketchbook, he watched her while trying not to seem like he was watching her.

Spying, like subtlety, was apparently not his strong suit, because she looked up a few minutes later. "What?" she asked. "Am I bothering you?"

"No." Alec gestured awkwardly to where she was seated on his bed. "Just... can I watch?"

A look of surprise crossed her face, and then she was scooting away from the middle to the far side of the bed to make room for him. He was careful not to jostle the pencils still scattered across the bed as he sat down beside her, stretching his long legs out and leaning back against the headboard.

"I can't promise it'll be interesting," she warned him.

"It will be," he said immediately, not having to think about it. He was fascinated with her just from watching her across the room. Being able to see what she was drawing, being next to her, would be riveting.

She tossed him a sideways glance, but she picked up her pencil again. She was sketching a wolf this time, a side view in the corner of the page. Sketches of the head and bodies of other wolves from other angles already filled the rest of the page.

"I've been thinking about Luke," she told him as she began to shade in the fur. "It's so weird to know he's the leader of a pack, that he was leading werewolves even when he seemed perfectly normal when I was growing up. It's so weird to know werewolves exist at all."

"It's a lot to have thrown at you," Alec agreed. "When you haven't grown up with it all being normal."

"Yeah." She switched to a softer gray pencil to begin darkening the wolf's muzzle. "You seem to handle it perfectly. You do everything perfectly."

He snorted. "Yeah, right. That was always–" _Jace_ , he didn't finish. "I mess up," he said instead. "I walked out in the middle of a wedding _I_ proposed. I couldn't save Jace. I–"

"You saved me," she said quietly. "You could have let me die in that portal. No one would have known you could have gotten to me in time. And then your problem would have been gone."

"You're not my problem," he said sharply, sitting up straighter against the headboard. "I wanted to protect you. I'd do it again." He didn't think about those words before they were out of his mouth, but he didn't regret them. They were true.

Her pencil stopped moving. "Because of Jace?"

"Because of you."

She turned to look at him, and her leg came into contact with his. He didn't pull away, just registered the contact and deemed it pleasant. Desired.

"Alec..." she began. She stared at him with intent, beautiful eyes, and his heart pounded in his ears. He couldn't look away, didn't want to, but still he was frozen, unable to move toward her or say anything.

"I want to draw you again," she said abruptly. "Can I?"

He licked his lips and nodded.

She turned fully to face him, and her other leg came into contact with his. She watched his face carefully, whether to begin drawing him or for his reaction, he didn't know.

Then she turned to the next page of her sketchbook and picked up a soft black pencil. Her eyes met his, and her brow furrowed as she scrutinized him like he was a particularly intriguing mystery. Then she brought her pencil to the paper.

She told him to hold still, and he struggled to comply when her gaze moved to the side of his face, where he could only see her in his peripheral vision, to facing him head on, his eyes making contact with hers and unable to break free.

It was one of the most startlingly intimate experiences of his life.

She braced her hand on the bed between his parted knees as she leaned over to get the angle of his face, and she rested her sketchpad for just a moment on his lower thighs to make a few quick adjustments to her drawing. He could feel the slight shifting of the sketchbook against his legs as she drew.

He couldn't stop himself from closing his eyes for a moment, willing himself not to react visibly to her presence. Not his heartbeat, or his expression, or any... lower areas.

Finally she shifted back on her heels, looking satisfied. "Done."

She turned the page so he could see it, his intense gaze, the rune just beginning to peek through his neck and the collar of his shirt before the sketch ended at the bottom of the page. Again he looked more handsome, more intense and focused than he actually was, but he didn't comment it on it this time. It was undeniably him, in careless strokes that somehow perfectly traced his features.

"I don't know how you do it," he said, turning his head toward her with relief for the first time in a half hour.

She smiled. "Genetics and practice." She brought her eyes up to his, and there was an uncertain curiosity in her gaze.

Suddenly he heard the confident sound of heeled shoes coming down the hallway toward his room. He would recognize his sister's walk – and the clatter of her impractical stiletto boots – anywhere, and since his room was farther down the hallway than hers, he knew she was coming for him.

Clary leaned back from him as if she had been doing something wrong, and he rose off the bed and stepped out of the room to meet his sister in the hallway.

"A nest of Ravener demons," Isabelle said without preamble when she saw him.

She had stopped walking far enough before his room to not be able to see Clary. He didn't want to have to explain her presence in his room at eleven at night. He didn't know what he would say.

"Where?" he asked his sister.

"A little east of Central Park," she said, already turning away. "I need to change. You're coming, right?"

"Of course," he said. "Meet you in five." She nodded and left back down the hallway.

Alec returned to his bedroom to see Clary gathering up her pencils from his bed. "I have to go," he told her, and she nodded.

"I heard. I wish I could go with you."

He frowned. "Why can't you? You've gotten a lot better. I'd look out for you."

She smiled. "Thank you. But I promised my mom I'd stay behind for the next couple of months. It's the only thing she's asked of me."

He nodded and walked to his closet where his gear was hanging. He pulled it on over his t-shirt and stepped into the closet far enough that she wouldn't be able to see him as he changed his jeans out for the thick black trousers he wore for demon hunting.

Clary was standing in his doorway when he came out sat down on the chair to pull on his boots. When he rose she flicked her eyes down his frame and back up to his eyes again so quickly he half thought he'd imagined it.

"Kill one for me?" she asked with a small smile, leaning against the doorframe.

He returned it. It was easy to smile around her. "Absolutely."

* * *

 

He tried not to limp into the training room the next morning, where Clary was already waiting, doing situps on the floor. She rose when he walked in, already looking more graceful than she had a month ago.

"Rough night?" she asked.

"Mostly just long," he said. "We didn't expect the nest to be so big." It had only been him, Isabelle, and a couple other Shadowhunters to take down over twenty of the demons. Luckily the demons were stupid enough to scatter, meaning they could be hunted down in small groups.

"I can tell," she said with a small smile as she walked up to him, stepping closer to him than she normally did. She tugged gently on the hem of his t-shirt, and he looked down at her in surprise. "Your shirt's on inside out."

He automatically dropped his hands to the hem, intending to pull it over his head and back on, but he hesitated. She was so close, looking up at him with an expression he couldn't decipher. If he'd been better at understanding people, he was sure he would have.

His heart was racing again, he noticed with an odd detachment, and Clary was looking at him with an unreadable expression. She was still touching his shirt, and he could feel the soft pressure from her fingers against his lower stomach. "I know," she said softly, not moving away from him, "I know I shouldn't. That you... But I was hoping maybe, just once, I could..."

She raised herself up on her tiptoes and still had to pull his lips down to hers, tugging on his shirt with her other hand to keep her balance. Her lips were soft and she tasted like cherry chapstick. He was just learning the feel of her lips against his when she pulled back.

Her hand rose to her mouth, and she stepped backward. "Oh my god, I'm sorry, Alec. I'm so sorry. I'll tell Magnus, don't worry. You've done nothing wrong."

"It's okay," he said automatically, his fingers trembling against the urge to pull her back against him. It was more than okay. It was everything he'd never known he wanted. "Magnus is kind of shockingly understanding. He'd only be upset if I tried to go behind his back."

He held out his hand, and just as she had when he'd held it out for her the day Jace had abandoned them, her fingers easily slid into his, and he tugged her back to him.

"I thought it was just a pointless crush," she said, looking up at him uncertainly. "But sometimes when you looked at me I thought maybe you were seeing... me. A woman."

"I was," he admitted. "I didn't expect to. But I did. I do."

"So Magnus won't curse me with demon pox if I kiss you?" she asked, raising her bright eyes to his. She looked beautiful with her green eyes shining, staring at him as if he was all she'd ever hoped for.

He couldn't fight back a smile. "There are no guarantees in life, Clary."

"Then I'll be brave." She rose on her tiptoes again, and this time he met her halfway, letting his eyes fall shut as he brought his mouth down to hers. Her lips parted, and she brought her hands to his forearms to steady herself as he deepened the kiss.

It was a new experience, being the one who initiated, who led and waited to see if she would follow. One of his hands slid over her cheek and into her hair to pull her long hair free of its hair tie, and the other slid to her lower back to pull her closer against him. Finally she pulled back, gasping for air, and he used the opportunity to back her up against the wall and then press his face into her neck, kissing and sucking there.

She rested her hands on his shoulders. "Pick me up," she whispered.

"What?"

She reached for one of his hands and slid it to her upper thigh, just below her bottom. "Don't get me wrong," she said breathlessly. "It's great that you're so tall, but I want to be able to kiss you properly."

Finally he figured out what she was talking about. He'd never kissed anyone so much shorter than him before. She wrapped her legs around his waist as he lifted her easily, pressing her back against the wall harder than he meant to, but she didn't seem to mind, bringing his lips back down to hers and teasing his bottom lip.

He made a soft groaning sound as she bit his bottom lip. The hand that he didn't need to support her weight came up to rest against her collarbone, feeling her breathe heavily, in and out.

Then, almost of its own accord, his hand trailed down her collarbone, down her upper arms and to her waist and hips. He slid his other hand up to her hips to reposition her, and then grunted at how the change in position brought himself up between her legs.

She shifted against him restlessly, just the slightest movement of her hips, and the friction had him breathing out unsteadily. Running entirely on instinct, he trailed his fingers back up her hips and played with the hem of her tight tank top. Since her tongue was still in his mouth, he decided she would be fine with it and slid his hand up along her lower stomach until he felt warm, soft skin under his palms.

A voice broke in, and they both froze. "Hey, Clary, do you want to – oh, holy god."

Isabelle stood in the room, looking immaculate in an impossibly tight black leather dress and slicked-back bun. Alec felt absurdly pleased to have caused her to look truly shocked. It so rarely happened.

Her eyes darted between the two of them, as if she thought she might be misinterpreting what it meant that he had Clary pinned against the wall, her legs still wrapped around his waist.

"Of all the things I never thought I'd see in my entire life," she said after a moment, and impressively, her voice was only slightly shaky, "this was in the top five percent. Maybe one percent."

Clary slowly let her legs fall from around Alec's waist, and he helped set her on her feet, though he didn't move away from her. Now that he knew what it felt like to touch her, he didn't want her to be too far out of his reach. "I can explain–" she started.

"Really?" Isabelle looked doubtful. "You can explain why – _how_ – you're making out with my gay, taken brother?"

"Well–" Clary bit her lip and looked at him for help.

"Magnus understands," Alec said shortly. He didn't need to go into the details with anyone but Clary. "And clearly, I like her, unlike every other girl I've ever met."

"Jace–" Isabelle started, turning to Clary.

"Jace is my _brother_ , Izzy," Clary said. "I'm not going to pine away for the rest of my life wishing he wasn't."

Isabelle was silent for a few moments. "This is so unbelievably weird," she said finally. "But I want both of you to be happy, so if this is it..."

Clary slid her fingers into Alec's, smiling up at him. Her hair was still wild and loose from him running his hands through it. She looked beautiful, more vibrant and alive than he'd seen her since Jace left. "It is," she said.

Alec just raised his eyebrows at Isabelle, waiting to see if she was done lecturing. She seemed to get the message and nodded briskly, pivoting on one stiletto heel. "Oh, and Alec," she said as she left the room. "Your shirt's on inside out, did you know?"

* * *

 

When Clary showed up at his door that evening, she was empty-handed. Alec raised his eyebrows at her as she stepped inside, and tried to focus on her and not the fact that she was closing and locking the door behind her.

She met his eyes with a mischievous look. "So... I was thinking I could skip drawing tonight."

He bit back a smile as he rose from the chair to meet her in the middle of the room. "But you love drawing. I'd hate you to have to break your routine."

She laughed and wrapped her arms around his neck, so naturally, like they'd always done this. His hands went to her waist, and he tugged her a little tighter against him.

She rose on tiptoes until their noses brushed against each other, until their lips were touching, but she didn't kiss him. "I was thinking we could add in a new activity to our routine," she whispered against his lips.

"Really?" he said. "What's that?"

She laughed, and then she kissed him hard. It took him a second to catch up, and then his hands were sliding up her back and into her hair. She was wearing it down, though every other night she'd come to him she'd had it pulled up in a messy ponytail. He wondered if she'd done it for him.

He loved the sweet, gasping sounds she made as he tasted her, as he explored her mouth. She pressed forward to kiss him harder, but he slid a hand against the side of her face and gently held her there so that he could drink his fill from her.

Her hands tightened in his hair, and he could feel her sliding her hands up under his t-shirt, tracing his abs and then up his chest. He moved down her jaw and neck, kissing her there, and her hands around his bare waist tightened convulsively. He could feel her fingernails digging into his skin, and he liked it, liked her marking him.

Experimentally, he began sucking and teasing the skin at the crook of her neck and shoulder, bringing blood to the surface with his tongue and then biting down gently. He hoped he wasn't being too rough, but she made a noise deep in her throat and then her legs were wrapping around his waist. He scooped her up and sat down on the edge of the bed with her in his lap.

She immediately began pulling his shirt up over his head. He grinned and let her, and then his lips were on hers again. She shifted where she was straddling him, and he caught her hips without planning to, deliberately running her up and down his arousal.

She kept up the slow, torturous rhythm as he ran his fingers up her sides under her tank top, and then he was cupping one soft breast covered only in a thin bra. His hands felt large and rough on her soft, unblemished skin, but she shivered as he cupped her with one hand and slid up and down her delicate ribcage with the other.

"Alec," she whispered as he slowly thumbed over one taut nipple.

"Yes, Clary?" He reached behind her with only a little fumbling to unhook her bra so he could touch her freely.

"Don't stop."

His heart was pounding again, and he was so hard it hurt. He gently pushed her onto her back on the bed. She smiled up at him lazily as he pulled down her panties along with her loose pajama pants, and he couldn't stop himself from kissing her again, just for seeing her beautiful smile.

He pulled off the rest of his clothes and leaned over her on the bed. He pressed his lips, his tongue along her skin. Her body was shockingly new to him, curves instead of straight lines, from her waist widening slightly into her hips, her lower back curving into her bottom, and the gentle rise of her breasts. She was lightly muscled from their training but still soft to his touch.

He didn't inherently love curves, didn't love the shape of most women's  bodies, but he loved the shape of hers.

She cried out when he entered her, and again as she came hard, squeezing him tight. When he felt his own release, he groaned her name against her pale, flushed skin.

She curled up beside him as he fell back on the bed, panting. He wrapped his arm around her automatically, and she rested her head against his chest. "You're amazing," she said when she could speak.

He smiled crookedly down at her. "That's the orgasm talking."

"It's not!" she said indignantly. "Well, maybe a little." Then her expression turned serious, and she twisted enough to be able to brush his hair out of his eyes.

"I know... people don't always see you," she said softly, her fingers lingering on his cheek. "But I want you to know that I see you, Alec. Sometimes, you're all I see."

She ducked her head, blushing, and he leaned over to take her lips in his, kissing her gently. "I've never met anyone like you, Clary Fray," he said. "You make me come alive in a way I didn't believe was possible."

Her smile lit up her face, and then she was rolling on top of him completely. His hands came down automatically to settle on her hips. "So, let's talk about your stamina rune," she said.

Laughing, he grasped the back of her head gently and pulled her mouth and her body back down to his.

 

**FIN**


End file.
